Enoch Powell

Enoch Powell (16 June 1912-8 February 1998) was a Conservative Party and Ulster Unionist Party MP who represented Wolverhampton South West from 23 February 1950 to 28 February 1974 (preceding Nicholas Budgen) and South Down from 10 October 1974 to 11 June 1987 (succeeding Lawrence Orr and preceding Eddie McGrady). From 27 July 1960 to 18 October 1963, he served as Health Minister, succeeding Derek Walker-Smith and preceding Anthony Barber.

Biography
Enoch Powell was born in Birmingham, England in 1912, and he was educated there and at Cambridge. In 1937, he became professor of Greek at Sydney University, Australia. In 1939, he enlisted in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, but was soon involved in intelligence work, first in Egypt, then Cairo. After the war, he entered the research department of the Conservative Party, and was subsequently elected to Parliament for Wolverhampton South in 1950. He worked in the Ministry of Housing under Anthony Eden, whom he ardently supported in the Suez Crisis. As Financial Secretary to the Treasury under Harold Macmillan, he resigned in 1959 over government refusals to cut public expenditure. He was Minister of Health from 1960 to 1963. During Edward Heath's government he gained a following through populist and xenophobic attacks on immigration, his opposition to British membership of the EEC, and his concern for Northern Ireland. He became an obstinate voice of Ulster as representative of the Ulster Unionist Party from 1974 to 1987. One of the most inspiring and intelligent of British postwar politicians, his career was hindered by his inability to conform to the view of others, and by his preference for being critical, rather than constructive. He was defeated in the 1987 election, and he died in 1998.